AM Alert: E-cigarettes in Leno’s sights

Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, wants to extend the same restrictions placed on cigarettes to e-cigarettes.

His bill, Senate Bill 140, is up in the Assembly’s Governmental Organization committee Wednesday. It is the bill’s first hearing in the lower house. SB 140 makes selling e-cigarettes to minors a crime, sets licensing requirements for selling them, and bans smoking them in all the places smoking cigarettes is banned.

In advance of the hearing, he’s holding an event with health advocate groups today at 10 a.m. in Capitol room 112.

BEDBUGS: AB 551, a bill that would prohibit landlords from renting apartments they know have bedbugs and require them to hire an exterminator within five days, will be heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee today. The bill was contentious as it moved through the Assembly – six landlord associations were opposed.

The California Political Consulting Group, representing five of those landlord groups, says the bill’s author has agreed to amendments making it friendlier for them. Lobbyist Ron Kingston groups said the major provisions of the bill – the requirement to bring in a pest control operator and the rental prohibition – are reasonable.

The hearing is at 1:30 p.m. in room 112.

PRIVACY LAW: Also in the Senate’s judiciary committee is AB 964, a cybersecurity bill that in its earlier form had opposition from several business groups. The office of Assemblyman Ed Chau, D-Monterey Park, the author, says the groups have all dropped their opposition after an amendment removed a requirement for businesses to notify the attorney general of the date of a data breach. In its current form, the bill only provides a definition for the level of encryption that warrants considering information safe.

FRACKING: The State Water Resources Control Board is considering adopting a program that would monitor fracking operations for effects on state groundwater. Board staff has recommended members authorize more than $7 million in spending on contracts to implement the program.

Its meeting begins today at 9 a.m. in the Coastal Hearing Room, 1001 I Street.